It's been suggested that if the first rule of real estate is location, location, location, then the second must be storage, storage, storage. This especially holds true in the often cramped quarters of New York. But whereas many might see an extra cupboard or closet as a nice bonus, storage evokes something closer to liberation for Luca Andrisani. "I like the freedom of putting things away and hiding them," the Italian-born architect says. Particularly, perhaps, when your apartment is just 400 square feet.

Tucked away on the first floor of a prewar building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, Andrisani's home is an exercise in space-making ingenuity. What was once not much more than a studio with a head-crunching loft bed -- "very claustrophobic," he recalls -- can now pass for a comfortable, if snug, one-bedroom.

Andrisani moved in about two years ago, not long after he established his solo practice. Having worked for the vanguard Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and the haute New York designer Peter Marino, "I was ready to go out on my own," he says. Since then, he has designed a Lalique shop in San Francisco and Poleci fashion boutiques in New York and Las Vegas as well as residential interiors in Manhattan.

When it came to his own home, Andrisani had the benefit of exposed brick walls and generous 11-foot ceilings. But first there was some cleaning-up to do. The loft bed was taken out, the kitchen and bathroom gutted and the oak floors refinished. Meanwhile, a Sheetrock divider separating the living and sleeping areas was replaced with a new double-sided storage wall -- a sleek, white-lacquered assemblage of folding and pocket doors. Now the home's centerpiece, it cleverly conceals a rotating flat-screen television between two sets of those doors; one opens to the bedroom, the other to the living room on the other side.

But that's just the beginning of the apartment's stash. Flanking the television are spaces for a media center and DVDs. Above, a row of cubbies makes room for books and assorted other items, with a pantry bookending it all. There's even storage for storage: an extra-deep overhead compartment for keeping luggage.

In the kitchen, white-oak-faced cabinets now disguise a refrigerator drawer ("I don't like looking at appliances," Andrisani says) and are framed by still more storage. Behind door number 1, you'll find tools. Behind door number 2, there's old artwork and furniture. And then there's the bathroom. "I even fit storage in here," says Andrisani, pointing to built-ins tucked into the white-on-white space. What's more, a six-inch-wide gap abutting the bathroom door was carved out for bookshelves; there's a place for everything, and not a thing out of place. "Friends say I should talk to a therapist," says the designer, whose fastidiousness is masked by an easygoing manner.

To be sure, you could think of Andrisani's home as the modern-apartment version of a Fabergé egg: small and impeccably crafted with lots of moving parts and everything just so. On the other hand, it's also the exact opposite: warm, casual, relaxed and seemingly effortless.

The home's rigorous organization, after all, is softened by its furnishings, the fruits of a wish list Andrisani had been compiling for years. His previous home was even smaller than the current one; knowing it was temporary, Andrisani had simply filled it with IKEA.

Working with a blank slate, Andrisani thus scoured, browsed, commissioned and otherwise bought his heart's desires. Bidding online in auctions, he assembled an array of iconic designs: a Harry Bertoia Diamond chair and a Paul Evans brass-and-stainless-steel side table in the main room and, in the bedroom, a Verner Panton floor lamp and a Herman Miller desk. In the dining area, Arne Jacobsen chairs and a Louis Poulsen hanging light help satisfy Andrisani's yen for Scandinavian design -- a vestige, he surmises, of his days studying architecture at the Royal Institute in Stockholm.

Of course, Andrisani had no intention of living in a design museum, so he mixed in plenty of new pieces as well. A taupe linen-upholstered sofa sits on a sisal-and-steel-thread rug. Graphic flower collages by the artist Peter Dayton and other contemporary artworks join pieces of coral and a six-foot-tall petrified cactus in adding an organic touch.

A wall clad in wide oak planks helps warm up the bedroom. "I think it's a nice texture," Andrisani says. Yet more remarkable is what lies on the other side: a walk-in closet. Yes, a walk-in closet in an apartment that isn't much bigger than, well, a walk-in closet.

Indeed, Andrisani has managed to wrest every cubic inch from his home, and to do so without sacrificing comfort. When it comes to space, after all, there's an advantage to doing more with less. "I think it's part of living in New York," the architect says. "I like to have everything close; it's cozy."